Okay, I was not even born until after the Van Craze was on the way out. Missed it by “that” much! But for you friendly folks who lived through the ’70s, I’m sure you remember it well. It happened after the Musclecar Era and about in the middle of the Great Brougham Epoch, to be later replaced by the CRX Digi-Dash Administration, when anything made in Japan and sporty (RX-7, CRX, 280ZX etc.) with trick ’80s features ruled the land–well, except for in the Midwest. But I digress. Let’s take a look at a very customized Econoline.

Bright orange paint, a really cool mural (so much neater than the usual horse/unicorn/naked lady/naked lady on a unicorn), RWL tires and chrome deep-dish wheels, and even side pipes! What is confusing is the standard exhaust pipe is present and accounted for. So are the chrome side pipes dummies? I don’t know, as I didn’t even notice it until writing up this car just last week.

Oh. My. Do you not see every split-level ’70s home cliché in here? Fake brick, the decorative wooden balusters oft-seen in rec rooms, shag carpet, velour…yikes. Yet I still love it. This is very much a custom staying true to its era!

Hey look, it even has a Princess phone? I’ve no idea if it works (could you make it functional by using cell phone components?) but if it did that would be so cool! A fridge and mini-bar are also in evidence–all the comforts of home. Note there is also a flip-up sunroof up front.

The front compartment is much more business-like, with black high-back bucket seats and a Grant GT steering wheel (natch). Note the special cup holders, with slots for cans as well as coffee mugs. Should we credit ’70s “Vanners” for today’s ever-present cup holders? Seems they were way ahead of the curve…

A pretty neat van, wouldn’t you say? It has it all–bedroom (if this van is a rockin’…), living room and a kitchen. If this was four-wheel drive and you didn’t mind not having a bathroom or shower, this could be a most excellent way to drive across the country. Not everybody needs a billboard-sized Winnebago or some such. Sometimes, less is more–especially when it’s over the top!

Seeing this van at the 2013 Nauvoo Grape Festival car show made my day. Lots more cool cars were in evidence too–a ’57 Saratoga hardtop, paisley-roofed ’67 Camaro with bench seat and column shift, a ’71-’72 Chevelle Concours wagon..darn, I need to write some of those cars up too!

Thanks for this excellent find and write-up Tom.
It’s too bad you missed the 70s, they were a fun time for sure.
This Econoline captures the van craze essence very well,
except for a few elements… the captains chairs are too conservative.
IMO to be true to the 70s, they need more pleats and buttons.
A shag carpet dash pad would help too.
But more than anything… it needs the original from ’75, Econoline front end.
With the round sealed beam headlights and a custom horizontal bar grille.
The grill and square headlights on this one look too early 80s, especially with the Ford oval.
A round porthole window above the side murals would be a perfect addition as well.

What about “Everybody working hard for the week-end” by Loverboy, “Hot blooded” by Foreigner, “Tom Sawyer” by Rush, “Chevy Van” by Sammy Johns? However, the song “Chevy Van” might be out of place if you ride a Ford Ecolonine or a Dodge Sportsvan. 😉

I’ve had a number of relatives who’ve owned conversion vans, albeit none with murals and none as elaborate or expensive as this one. Unfortunately, for me the kitsch appeal has been dampened quite a bit by the number of battered RVs and vans around L.A. that people are clearly living in, moving them just enough (and often just far enough) to avoid street cleaning tickets. What’s fun as cool retro-70s velour palace becomes a lot more depressing as “one step above complete homelessness.”

I remember one time, circa 1990, being out one evening in my town with a friend when I suddenly heard a horrible clanging noise. We turned around to see a somewhat dilapidated with faded elaborate paintwork mid 70s Chevy Custom van that had just dropped it’s driveshaft. It was a real moment of pathos, as I realized I was getting older,and the icons of my youth had aged right along with me. I hope Sammy Johns (or was it Disco Stu ?) had AAA.

Unfortunately, I think this is ultimately the case with any car or material item that is designed to be used up. Each new car passes into numerous hands over it’s lifetime. In most cases, each new owner has less economic means than the previous owner. At least cars like the Saturn, with it’s plastic body panels, can age more gracefully perhaps. But they all wear out eventually. A full-sized van going from a family holiday camper to a poor person’s home isn’t completely surprising. I think it’s definitely more noticeable in southern salt free climates as well. In the rust belt, cars or vans simply don’t remain roadworthy or protect you sufficiently from the cold. These 70s vans disappeared many moons ago.

I think folks need to keep in mind that these were fun, anti-convention freedom machines as much as 60s muscle cars were, or 1930s hot rods in the 1950s, or tuned Honda Civics with wings are today. Just a fun expression of the times… and meant to ruffle parents feathers too. If they are tacky, that’s meant to be part of the package too!
Cars/vans are one of the best ways to make a statement.

I got my drivers license in 1976. Vans were a great way to have something different in a time when Muscle cars were a shadow of their former selves. Vans were fairly cheap, easy to work on and didn’t need much power to be cool.
I always wanted a first Generation Econoline. I ended up spending my high school years behind the wheel of a ’65 Mustang 2+2 I bought for $450. The car was more bondo than steel, but I learned nearly everything know about cars taking it apart and rebuilding it.
It was a fun time to be coming of age.

One of the few upsides to having a brother in a wheelchair was the requirement of a van for doing anything. And as long as I drove him to HS (being 3 years older) I got full access to a succession of cheap vans – and by cheap, that ususally meant bare-bones steel ribs without insulation or paneling, and normally a VW backseat attached to the cargo floor with u-bolts. And plaid curtains held up with fishing line or thin cotton string.

Learned how to drive in the early ’70’s on a ’70 E100, I6 w/ 3 on tree. Mom made sure to teach me how to back up first; said if I could do that, I could do (almost) anything.

Took a pair of 6×9’s and built boom boxes with enough wire to put them on the roof for blasting the Lear Jet Stereo 8 with Audiovox EQ in the parking lot. Needed to keep a spare battery or jumpers handy as the main normally got drained weekly. I miss the days when you could wire your own sounds without shredding the dash.

I miss the days when you could wire your own sounds without shredding the dash.

Depends on what you are attempting to do. If creating a stock looking system or simply replacing a dead head unit, it’s not that difficult, even with modern cars where even the HU and speakers now talk to the canbus. What you do is get interface modules for your car that will talk to the canbus, thus you can then upgrade your sound system.

Last year, put a stock looking double DIN JVC head unit in my ’03 Mazda Protege 5, using the stock speakers which were fantastic sounding, without issue, since that car didn’t require a canbus interface for the sound systems.

However, I did get the proper pigtail adapter to make it easier to connect up the wiring without messing with the harness itself.

Tom, it’s a good thing we live the distance apart that we do or we would have to check with the other about our finds; I saw this van several years ago at the Apple Festival (or something like that) in Barry, Illinois, back when I was still in Hannibal. Your picture of the interior brought it all back to mind. Frankly, I don’t know how it was able to leave my mind!

The mural is interesting – how often do you see artwork with an infinite repetition of itself nowadays? But the Pizza Hut has me stumped. Was it a promotional tie-in of some sort, or did the owner have a franchise, or…?

Pinstriping in the door jambs. That’s a new one to me. Kinda neat, in an almost overboard sort of way.

At first when the van craze began in the early 1970s – you knew it was legit when Hot Rod Magazine began featuring them – I wanted one – a Chevy short wheel base version. A friend bought one in 1975 – a Chevy long wheel base in an orangish-metallic brown that was very popular. I actually have a photo of it and him in an album I need to scan.

Of course he paneled the interior, put in a closet and added a bed platform over the rear wheel wells. Shag carpeting? You betcha! He also added elliptical smoked bubble portholes at the rear sides at an angle. It was a base model – six stick. That was all! Add a cassette player and he was good to go.

What amazed me about the vans was how uncomfortable your feet got in the cramped footwell if you were a passenger!

Another friend had a few vans, too, one of which I lettered his name on the doors. It was a white Dodge D100.

In the late 1970s, I again kind of wanted a van – Wifey gave her OK – I would paint it up to resemble an EMD F7 in Santa Fe Railway warbonnet colors! I came real close, too.

After all that was said and done, I’m happy I never bought one, as I really didn’t see myself driving a shoebox on a daily basis!

This, however, is a sterling example of the customized van craft! Well done!

Fake side pipes used to be fairly common on custom vans. Once catalytic converters became the norm, at least on the 1/2 tons, plumbing in functioning side pipes legally became a bit of a pain.

One problem with this being the most 70′s van is that it is at least from the 80′s. The blue ovals didn’t start appearing until then, but of course those could have been added. The big tell however is the locking steering column. At least until 1982 Econolines had their ignition switch located on the dash to the left of the steering column.

I forgot about the blue ovals coming on in ’82. While writing the post I remembered that the 1979 Econoline was available with rectangular lights and just assumed that someone who went to so much trouble to make a ’70s-like custom van would use, well, a van from the ’70s!

Yup the 79 was the first Econoline with the rectangular headlights. What I don’t understand is why the Nantucket didn’t get a locking steering column from the get go. Ford had it in cars for many years before these made their debut and I can’t imagine that they thought that the gov’t would never expand that mandate to trucks.

I would guess dollars and cents. Jeez, they never put a column-lock on the Falcon, which they kept building right up through December, 1969 when it became mandatory, then stopped. Could these have shared column parts with F series pickups? I don’t believe the F series got a column key until 1980, and is that when the E series got it too? I do recall driving a couple of 70s Econolines with the key on the dash, but seem to recall an 81 that had a column ignition. Ford seemed to be the only one of the Big 3 who really liked left-handed key starts in the dash. Chrysler did it rarely (69 Fury) and I can’t think of a single GM car with a left-handed key in the dash. But lotsa Fords.

Eric VanBuren

Posted November 11, 2013 at 4:50 PM

Well with the Falcon it was a model who’s replacement was waiting in the wings so that is understandable. For the Econoline I know the 2 1979s that I had did have the key in the dash as did the 1979 F250 I used to have. My 1982 Econoline does have the locking column. I know that the Econoline borrowed heavily from the F series parts bin but I haven’t paid that close of attention to know if the column is 100% interchangeable between the E and F.

On an interesting note about locking steering columns the Scout got them in 1971 though they did not have to have them. The Travelall and Pickup did not get the locking steering column until 1974. However when the tilt column was ordered for the later Scout II it had the key in the column but the locking plate and pin are not present. It is a Saginaw type column and the provisions are there to lock the column, presumably they saved paying GM a couple of pennies by having them leave those parts out. The question is why they didn’t leave them out on the fixed column.

Note to Tom, my 82 Econoline wears the separate F O R D letters on its hood and back door not the blue oval.

roger628

Posted November 11, 2013 at 8:47 PM

’64 Lemans-Tempest-GTO and by default, ’64 Canadian Beaumont, which used the same dash.

MCT

Posted November 11, 2013 at 9:39 PM

“Note to Tom, my 82 Econoline wears the separate F O R D letters on its hood and back door not the blue oval.”

I had thought Ford brought back the blue oval in ’82 — I think they did on at least some models — but maybe the big vans didn’t get it that year. A Google search turns up a 1982 Econoline brochure on ebay whose cover photo subject has front end badging as Eric describes.

Tom Klockau

Posted November 12, 2013 at 3:29 PM

Maybe the blue oval was added to cars in ’82, and trucks in ’83? Here’s an ’82 LTD Crown Victoria from the brochure: